CIRCUS QUIXOTE DRAMATURGY

Welcome to… Somewhere in la Mancha!
An Invitation from Dramaturg Gabriela Furtado Coutinho

The El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha is one of the most read and translated novels in human history, on some counts second only to the Bible.
As the world’s first modern novel, most writers and thinkers since have drawn inspiration from this text. Without Quijote, there might have been no Freudian psychoanalysis, no Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and no Spongebob and Patrick.
In 1614 an unknown author published a “false Quijote” part two. Fanfic was pretty popular at the time, but author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was clearly upset and scorned the imposter within the pages of his real part two, published only a year later.
Don Quijote has, around the world and across history, inspired protest, represented the figure of an idealistic martyr, and contradicted oppressive regimes especially in Latin America. On the other hand, the novel is tied with colonization of the Americas and continuous Eurocentrism—making the novel’s legacy as complicated and layered as its protagonist.
Author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) lived an extraordinary life before writing his magnum opus. When exiled from Spain for duelling, he chose military service and fought in the Battle of Lepanto, where he lost use of his left arm. Once allowed to return home, he was instead captured by Ottoman pirates and enslaved for about 5 years.
The “ultimate late bloomer,” Cervantes defied the odds by penning this legendary novel: His only schooling occurred between ages 8 and 15, and he strove but found little success in writing before publishing Quijote at age 58. In fact, in spite of writing over 30 plays, he never found acclaim in the theatre and had to live off of gigs tax gathering instead.
Many believe Cervantes began writing Quijote from jail in Sevilla in 1597, when he was arrested for irregularities in his accounts. Across his life, the Church excommunicated him thrice, and he was arrested at least 4 times.
“La Mancha” is a play on words. Though it’s the name of a geographic region (Castilla-La Mancha), it also means “stain,” a term used in reference to “stained” honor, thereby highlighting how Quijote might be an aberration to the knights-errant, and the region is no place for honor.
Cervantes lampoons the medieval tropes and chivalric romances that had long been popular in Spain. Medievalism lasted longest in Spain in comparison to other European countries, marking its end in 1492, with the peak of the oppressive Reconquista and Decreto de la Alhambra. Though many scholars consider early medievalism the “Dark Ages,” this was actually a time of much cultural exchange and diversity in Spain. The period following in which Cervantes lived is known as the “Spanish Golden Age,” actually a time of uncertainty and fear for people who weren’t considered “old Christians.”
Don Quijote is, in many ways, considered ‘other’ by his world. Historical evidence suggests Cervantes was a queer, Jewish man who had to conceal his identities. There’s much scholarship arguing that he represents “cross-cultural impersonation,” challenging governments’ attempts to assign classifications to the people.
This story serves as a protest of imagination, condemning censorship from more subtle acts all the way to book-burning. Themes of migration across land, societal instability, and unfaltering empathy feel important. Even when Don Quijote fails to rescue subjects, his good intentions inspire those around him. One direct quote from the novel exemplifies Don Quijote’s empathy for all: “And so, ma’am, or sir, or whatever you prefer to be…make us acquainted with your good or evil fortunes, for from all of us together, or from each one of us, you will receive empathy in your trouble.”

Quixote: was used in the very first publication in Madrid. It’s now considered archaic in Spanish but is seen today as the anglicized spelling. The team elected this title to denote that this is a mainly English adaptation.
Quijote: is the accepted Spanish spelling today for our story’s title and title character. In the script, the team utilized this spelling for the character’s name.
Quichotte: is the French spelling, made famous by the 1910 Massenet opera. In a novel inspired by Quijote and metafiction, Salman Rushdie also adopted the “Quichotte” spelling for his title.
Quixotic: is an English adjective which means “foolishly impractical in pursuit of ideals.”
Quijotización: is a Spanish word which means to dub, transform, or give a Don Quijote-like quality to someone or something. Many refer to the events of the novel as the “quijotización” of those around Don Quijote (including Sancho Panza) as they become more idealistic. Conversely, many describe the emotional death of Quijote as his “sanchificación” or return to reality.
Quixotisms: refers to vocabulary related to Cervantes, be them words he originated or concepts in Quijote’s chivalric order.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) traveled far and endured much to finally pen El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, considered the first modern novel. Here’s what you need to know about his astonishing life leading up to the publication of the novel’s first and second part.

He only had basic grammar school between ages 8 and 15.

He was exiled to Italy in 1569, likely for duelling and seriously injuring his opponent.

He chose military service to escape jail and sailed from Messina on the ship Marquesa, where he participated in the Battle of Lepanto while sick with malaria. During the battle, he permanently injured his left arm, “for the glory of the right,” he wrote.

Once he was finally allowed to return to Spain in 1575, on the voyage home he and his brother were intercepted by Ottoman pirates, who then sold them into slavery in Algiers.

Cervantes attempted escape four times. The punishment for one attempt was 2000 thwaks. He was only released after five years.

He experienced several excommunications and lawsuits due to poor management and accusations of embezzlement when he worked a gig for the army and navy, traveling to many towns to provision the Spanish Armada.

Across the over 30 plays he wrote, he saw no critical success and lived off of tax gathering and other gigs instead.

Many believe he began writing Quijote from jail in Sevilla in 1597, when he was arrested for irregularities in his accounts.

He remained for several years in obscure poverty in southern Spain, presumably writing. As he wandered, he was arrested once more at Argamasilla, where scholars say he continued writing Quijote.

Across his life, the Church excommunicated him thrice, and he was arrested at least 4 times.

After 58 years of struggling, Cervantes finally found success with the 1605 publication of his masterpiece—part one. Everyone except critics hailed it as a feast of humor and philosophy. And everyone longed for a sequel.

After part one, his sisters and granddaughter all died within months of each other. Soon after, he joined an order of the church.

In 1614 an unknown author published a “false Quijote” part two. Fanfic was pretty popular at the time, but Cervantes was clearly upset and scorned the imposter within the pages of his real part two, published only a year later.

In the novel, Cervantes lampoons the medieval tropes and chivalric romances that had long been popular in Spain. He also presents an array of vibrant characters of many backgrounds with dignity. This is the Spain that inspired him.

Until the late 400s A.D., the Iberian peninsula was under the Roman Empire, bringing with it Roman architecture and Latin—which evolved into Castilian, Catalan, Galician, and Portuguese.

In 409, German groups (Alans, Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths) invaded the Romans.

Some North African (Byzantine rule) influence came in through commerce across the Roman and Visigoth times. Byzantines also established the province of Spania on the southern Iberian coast, from the mid 500s to early 600s.

Visigothic rule ended with the Islamic conquest of 711.

Al-Andalus (name for Muslim-ruled Iberian Peninsula) ended in 1492 when Boabdil surrendered Granada to the Christian Ferdinand and Isabella. That day is viewed now as “a prelude to the oppression of the Muslim world,” as scholar Elizabeth Drayson puts it.

Spanish medievalism lasted longer than medievalism in the rest of Europe (which ended between 1400 and 1450 depending on region). In Spain, the period is said to end with the peak of the Reconquista and Decreto de la Alhambra ordering the expulsion of Jewish people from their kingdoms in Castile and Aragon (1492).

“Medieval Europe” is often dubbed as the “dark ages,” a time of cultural and artistic decline, but really, there were so many cultures, art styles, and peoples coming through Spain! This richness influences the worlds of Quijote’s chivalric romances, la Mancha, and Cervantes’s aesthetics and POV.

Don Quijote ponders what constitutes a ‘golden age’ and considers it a time of peace and no fear, which would contradict the Spanish Empire’s reality and values.

Although Cervantes lived during what scholars call “Siglo de Oro” or Spanish Golden Age, this was a time of uncertainty and fear for people who weren’t considered “old Christians.”

Historical evidence suggests Cervantes was a queer, Jewish man who had to conceal his identities. There’s much scholarship arguing that Cervantes represents “cross-cultural impersonation” and challenges governments’ attempts to assign identities and classifications to the people.

Although the first part of Don Quijote was published in 1605 and the second in 1615 and this adaptation reflects that time period, there are many reasons the novel is the most translated book of all time and one of the most read, nearly up there with the Bible!
One is that the novel serves as a protest of imagination. The story condemns censorship, from more subtle, insidious acts all the way to book-burning. During fascist regimes, especially in Latin American and Spain, many artists and scholars have pointed to the novel for inspiration and warning.
Themes of migration across land, societal instability, and unfaltering empathy feel important. Even when Don Quijote fails to rescue subjects, his good intentions inspire those around him. One direct quote from the novel exemplifies Quijote’s empathy for all: “And so, ma’am, or sir, or whatever you prefer to be…make us acquainted with your good or evil fortunes, for from all of us together, or from each one of us, you will receive empathy in your trouble.”
Just as Cervantes’s Spain was full of uncertainty for non-Catholics after 1492, the United States currently poses a world of uncertainties for many.
Cervantes included people of many cultures and religions in his works. There’s not just diversity of culture and language, but also thought (think of how beautifully Don Quijote and Sancho Panza get along, even though they’re so different). This piece comments on the actual violence of society and teaches us about the possibilities of peaceful coexistence. As Quijote says in the novel, “Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
Quijote is “different” or “other” in many ways. Some have diagnosed him, and others have found his “madness” more metaphorical. I ask myself how a society treats difference. There’s an adage that the best measure of a country’s humanity and strength is how it “treats its most vulnerable.” At different points, Quijote could either praise its society in that sense or serve as a scathing indictment.

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The Honor of Madness

Note from Dramaturg Gabriela Furtado Coutinho

“Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be.”

El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha has charmed and inspired millions to dream of what “should be” for over four centuries since the first part’s 1605 publication. Author Miguel de Cervantes, from beyond the grave, has connected souls for over four centuries, defying time and space to invite us along for a simple hidalgo’s personal revolution: to live as a knight-errant. We can all find our stories reflected back to us in the whimsy and determination of this bearded, bumbling man who strives to serve others.

El Quijote has suited each historical moment and found new relevance with every read. Without Quijote, there would be no Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick, no Doc Brown and Marty McFly friendship duos, and possibly no Freudian psychoanalysis. The novel emerged at the dawn of the modern world, during what some scholars call the ‘big bang’ of globalization. The Old World was beginning to exploit the “New,” and Spain’s nascent Catholic power was just discovering and flexing its muscles. In spite of following the supposed “Dark Ages,” the “Spanish Golden Age” dimmed the light of many constituents.

Cervantes hatched a figure worthy of meeting this chaotic historical moment after a lifetime of disappointments, including three excommunications, four arrests, and five years of enslavement. His heroic antihero would go on to teach readers about willpower, justice, the follies of censorship, and the healing capacities of friendship and acceptance. Yet the world’s first modern novel sustains a legacy as complicated as its protagonist. Its joys are as triumphant as they are poignant, and its ending is as inspiring as it is devastating.

El Quijote is many things. Yes, he slaughters sheep—but he’s only trying to defeat bad guys! Yes, he has been seen as Christlike—and he has also been interpreted as the white savior. Yes, he has maintained status quo in the Eurocentric belief that this is the pinnacle of Hispanic creation—and he has also championed unity and resistance across Latin America. Do we love him, fear him, diagnose him?

Quijote reflects with levity and love a revolutionary diversity of experience, thought, and culture, even more than would have been permissible in Cervantes’s Spain. In imagining into what could be, this work comments on the actual violence of society and teaches us about the possibilities of peaceful coexistence. Look how beautifully Quijote and Sancho’s friendship unfolds, in spite of their differences!

It is this sense of reconciliatory love that harmonizes the characters’ nuances, the array of possible interpretations, and the many cultural backgrounds with which we as audiences approach this story. Our current moment in early 2025 Chicago, too, unites us. Over the past 2 years, studies have emerged linking the arts to medicine, serving as remedy to what the former U.S. surgeon general called “an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” Much has been written recently about the “impossible dream” of running an arts nonprofit. And news each day reveals the trials and tribulations of impossible dreams to Latin American communities.

Quijote doesn’t always succeed—yet he still keeps on. “To dream the impossible dream, that is my quest.” That, too, is the quest of artists.

It is at this moment that Lookingglass re-enters. Quijote’s message of traveling about the world, combatting insularity, offering aid to the suffering, and advocating for justice feels bracing as ever. Lookingglass can tell this story in a way few others can, defying gravity, lifting the most magical and fantastical elements of the text, and thereby replicating the surprise readers must have felt when it was first published.

May your brief time in la Mancha be filled with laughter, wonder, and comfort as we remind ourselves that, if striving to do radical good is madness, then rigorous madness may prove “a healthy reaction to a mad world.” Qué seamos tan valientes.